Casino Day 1 main - Soul of Massachusetts at stake?

Kyle Alspach

Friday

Nov 23, 2007 at 12:01 AMNov 23, 2007 at 11:19 PM

Legalizing casinos would mean big changes for Massachusetts and all of New England. The state could become the casino capital of New England virtually overnight. Gambling addictions would double. Casino revenues in neighboring states would shrink.

UPDATED 12/26: Graph before "A matter of time" subhed: Changed to casino opened in 1992. Prior to that, it wasn't an actual casino, just a bingo hall.

UPDATED 12/26: Graph before "A matter of time" subhed: Changed to casino opened in 1992. Prior to that, it wasn't an actual casino, just a bingo hall.

Gene Hardy knows what he'd do with the money if he struck it big at the casino: A classic car for himself, a cruiser for the police, a house for a needy family.

"I'd have a ball," said the 71-year-old West Bridgewater resident, a regular visitor to casinos. "I'd be Santa Claus."

He's not the only one in Massachusetts fantasizing about casinos.

Gov. Deval Patrick also knows how he'd spend the huge sums the state could earn from casinos: He'd help struggling homeowners pay their property tax bills and fix the state's crumbling roads and bridges.

But legalizing casinos would mean big changes for Massachusetts and all of New England. The state could become the casino capital of New England virtually overnight. Gambling addictions would double. Casino revenues in neighboring states would shrink.

At the heart of the debate, according to opponents, is the soul of Massachusetts.

"We're supposed to represent the history and character and culture that made America great," said Kris Mineau, resident of the Massachusetts Family Institute. "To just sell this state to the glitter and the artificiality of Atlantic City and Las Vegas would be a tragedy."

On the other side, however, the expectations for casinos are as high as the 40-story hotels that would rise out of the ground to serve visitors. The state could earn $450 million a year in taxes and get 20,000 new jobs from resort-style casinos, all at a time when it's in a major fiscal slump, according to Gov. Patrick.

"From an economic standpoint, the argument is too compelling not to take that plunge," said Joe Weinert, editor-in-chief of the Gaming Industry Observer, a trade publication.

A gambling hub

Many point out that Massachusetts is already a gambling hub, with the second most popular lottery in the nation (behind only New York), four race tracks, two casino cruise ships and widespread bingo games.

But critics say casinos are a different animal. The opening of a casino is believed to increase alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence and bankruptcies among those who live nearby, say opponents.

Gambling addictions also roughly double among populations in a 50-mile radius of a casino, according to the federally commissioned National Gambling Impact Study Commission Report. Most people would live within this range of a casino under the governor's plan of distributing three casinos around the state -- one each in the western, southeastern and greater-Boston areas.

This would mean the estimated 250,000 problem gamblers in the state could grow to 500,000 - about 10 percent of the state's adult population.

It's a figure some consider staggering.

"We see it as actually immoral for our government to bring something into the Commonwealth that will cause harm," said the Rev. Jack Johnson, executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches.

Massachusetts would become the 38th state to allow some form of casino gambling, according to the American Gaming Association. Gamblers can now take a cruise from Lynn to play slots and table games in international waters three miles off shore.

A call for casinos

The loss of gambling dollars across the state's border is fueling the call for casinos here. Connecticut boasts two of the world's largest casinos, Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods, while Rhode Island and Maine both host racetrack casinos.

Casinos in Massachusetts would "rearrange the map as to how gambling dollars flow between the states," said Clyde Barrow, a gambling researcher at UMass-Dartmouth.

"Most would stay in Massachusetts," he said.

Bay State residents spend more than $1 billion a year at casinos in Connecticut and Rhode Island, accounting for nearly one-third of the revenues there, according to Barrow's research.

State governments get a hefty portion of the casino take. If money from Massachusetts residents dried up, Connecticut would lose about $120 million a year, and Rhode Island would lose $100 million.

"Like every place in New England, they're in a municipal fiscal crisis. Any reduction in revenues will create more difficulty," Barrow said.

Yet the biggest impact of all will be felt by local communities hosting and surrounding the casinos, experts say.

Traffic will increase significantly, as will some crimes, such as drunken driving. More money will be needed for upkeep of roads, and demand will rise for fire and emergency medical services, according to Barrow. Those communities will also take the brunt of the increase in gambling addictions.

These impacts hit hard in Ledyard, Conn., and other towns around Foxwoods after the casino opened in 1992, said Wesley Johnson, former Ledyard mayor. Many people have never gotten used to it, he said. "The closer you live to it, the worse you feel about it," Johnson said. He noted that a town tax collector, who had become addicted to gambling, stole $300,000 from the town at one point.

A matter of time

In Massachusetts, much of the casino discussion has revolved around the town of Middleboro, which forged an agreement earlier this year to host a $1 billion resort casino for the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe.

The tribe has been joined by groups around the state seeking to build casinos, including several in southeastern Massachusetts. Raynham, New Bedford and Plainville all have been touted as possible sites.

Major hurdles still remain, including resistance in the state House of Representatives. It will be up to the Legislature whether to pass a bill legalizing casinos.

It's also not the first time the state has been through this. In the past two decades, several major pushes for casinos have failed.

But some say it's only a matter of time for Massachusetts.

"Casino-style gambling has already spread throughout the northeast quadrant of the U.S.," said Weinert of the Gaming Industry Observer. "Putting casinos in Massachusetts is inevitable."

Kyle Alspach of The Enterprise (Brockton, Mass.) can be reached at kalspach@enterprisenews.com.

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